Erect or spreading, simple or branched slender perennials, 5-27 cm high; stems winged, glabrous. Leaves verticillate, in whorls of 3-5, obovate to elliptic-obovate, sometimes the uppermost lanceolate to elliptic-lanceolate, 7-21 mm long, 4-8 mm wide, cuspidate apically, attenuate basally, 1-nerved, the margin denticu-late, glabrous, glandular-punctate; petioles ca 1 mm long. Racemes cylindric, acuminate, rather dense, 4-20 mm long, 4-6 mm wide, the axis to 3.5 cm long; bracts deciduous, lanceolate, acuminate, glabrous, 0.6-0.8 mm long. Flowers purple or greenish-purple, the pedicels 0.4-0.7 mm long, outer sepals often mar-ginally ciliate from the apex to the middle, glabrous toward the base, usually gland-dotted, the largest ovate, obtuse, 1-1.2 mm long, the smaller 2 oblong to oblong-ovate, often somewhat acute, otherwise obtuse, 0.7-1 mm long; wings obo-vate to elliptic-obovate, rounded apically, short-clawed basally, glabrous, usually gland-dotted, 1.6-2 mm long, 1.1-1.2 mm wide; upper petals 1.9-2.2 mm long, ovate to rhombic-ovate, obtuse or rounded; keel 1.4-1.6 mm long, the crest 4-6-lobed, the lobes 0.3-0.7 mm long; staminal-tube. often split ca halfway into 2 bundles, each of 4 short filaments; ovary oblong to ovoid, 0.4-0.6 mm long, 0.3-0.5 mm wide, the style ascending, 0.2-0.3 mm long, developed distally into a navicular cavity, the apical end of which has a tuft of hairs, the inner end a globose, sessile stigma. Capsules broadly ellipsoid, 1.7-2.2 mm long, 1.4-1.9 mm wide; seeds (Fig. la) oblong, 1.4-1.8 mm long, appressed-pilose, often equaled by the 2 narrowly oblong, appressed lobes of the aril.
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